


New Material

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 10:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20674199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Eddie's recovered well, Richie is writing his own material, and...Well, it was only a matter of time before this happened.





	New Material

“Yeah, I jacked my friend off, his arm was broken!” Richie shrugs expansively, his delivery only slightly marred by his own nervous giggle. Well… not ‘marred’. It’s weirdly charming, actually. “It’s called being a bro, you guys, it’s called friendship. If I had a big ol’ cast over my jerking arm, you better _ believe _ I expect a true friend to man the fuck up for me in that scenario.”

He’s beautiful like this. Eddie knows ‘beautiful’ isn’t the word, really-- not the word anyone else would pick for Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier, but it’s _ his _ word. Richie, on stage and soaking up the laughter and applause, is incandescently beautiful. And he’s actually writing his own material again, and it suits him… he looks like himself up there. He looks like his brightest, happiest self. Sure, it’s still a lot of dick jokes, but… they’re authentic dick jokes. For better or for worse...

“No, no, I’m-- I’m fully joking, yeah.” He motions for the crowd to settle. “I didn’t jack my friend off when he broke his arm when we were kids. I, uh-- I really wanted to, actually. Like, I was _ way _ too chickenshit to ask. It was a _ bad time _ to be a small town homo. Which I was! I’m allowed to say it, _ I’m allowed to say it_, I’m super, _ super _ gay. Thought you guys should be the first to know, obviously.”

Some people are shocked silent, some are laughing for the wrong reasons, but enough of them are cheering, really cheering, and Eddie is one of them. Eddie is on his feet clapping like a seal and screaming his head off for him, and Richie points to him, big grin in place, picks him out of the crowd and probably could have done even if he hadn’t known where he’d be sitting, and Eddie knows Richie can’t really see him well, what with the lights, but he still feels a thrill.

“Heyyy, that’s him! Aw, you guys, that’s my boyfriend! Babe, are you proud of me? Or is that ‘you’re sleeping on the couch tonight’ applause? You guys, he told me not to talk about his dick tonight, but… like, it’s _ really _ nice. Babe, am I allowed to tell everyone it’s nice?”

“Fuck you!” Eddie hollers back, around a laugh-- and it is, as it turns out, a mistake. Only instead of having a quick rejoinder about Eddie’s mom, Richie just turns the most ridiculous face to the crowd, making sure every section has the chance to take in his best Comedy Leer.

“Oh, fuck _ me_? Not sleeping on the couch, then.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Propositioning me in public, oh _ my my_. Yeah, yeah, some of you guys thought that was a joke, right? That ‘small town homo’ thing? No, that’s the name of my next special. I’m calling it right here, that’s the comeback special, Richie Tozier: Small Town Homo. It’s gonna be real big. I predict literally dozens of people will look at that title on Netflix and ask their spouses if they know me from something. ‘Oh, you think this guy is funny, Barb?’ ‘Well, I don’t know, Stevie, says here he’s a small town homo. Not so sure about that.’ ‘Ayuh, not so sure about that.’ It’s gonna be… enormous.”

Eddie sits back down, smiling so hard his face hurts as he watches Richie up on stage, pulling laughs out of even the most reluctant audience members, disarming people with this new honesty-- along with the Voices and all the old crude and crass silliness, of course. People who might not have watched a ‘gay comedian’, who now find themselves laughing with Richie as he launches into a story about how his fussy boyfriend stores his toothbrush in the kitchen because of all the germs in the bathroom. 

“And, like… our bathroom is spotless, right?” Richie continues. “Which just goes to show what I know about microbes, I’m sure, but even if it _ wasn’t_, this man-- okay, this man bought me this thing, and you stick your toothbrush in it, and UV light… fuckin’ sterlizes that shit! He has that! _ We have the technology_! But he keeps his special toothbrush sanitizer by the kitchen sink. It’s literally insane, and I’m only telling you this so you, like… I want you to understand that _ that’s my type_. And you can probably tell by looking at me that I’m gross, in case you haven’t been paying attention to any of the words that come out of my mouth, like… I look like a guy who thinks the five second rule can stretch a few extra seconds for an oreo. An oreo is really good! You can’t throw that away, you just brush it off, it’s _ fine_. I look like that guy who eats the filthy oreo. It’s okay, you can say it! I know I look like that guy, and it’s _ not _ an inaccurate impression. So if I get murdered in my bed after the honeymoon period wears off, I just want you to know, it’s fully justified and not only should he not be prosecuted, you should probably give him a medal for taking me out, I probably ate an oreo off the floor. Thank you, goodnight!”

Eddie ducks out as the crowd goes wild, flashes his pass to the bouncer and finds Richie pouring a bottle of water over his face.

“Eating food off the floor is what’s going to kill you, you know.” He greets, wrapping his arms around Richie’s waist. “You were _ great_.”

“I’m kinda shaking and I think I might hurl. It’s all hitting me, I just came out to… um, strangers, and probably the whole internet an hour from now, and-- I was great?”

“You were _ fantastic_.”

“You really liked it?”

“Best you’ve been in a long time. You wanna get out of here?”

“I don’t know, are you going to fuck me?” Richie teases, and he’s still a little shaky, but he’s himself, at least.

“Honey, I’ll do whatever you want.” Eddie purrs, giving him a little tug towards the dressing room, where both their coats are. “All you have to do is take me home and ask, and you can _ have _ me.”

“Oho, I’m asking for the weird stuff tonight.” He jokes, and when Eddie doesn’t even pretend to protest it, his grin doubles.


End file.
